Court in session: PHC grants bail to two accused of illegal Afghan SIMs business

Counsel claims his clients were arrested against proper procedure.

PESHAWAR:

Two Afghan citizens arrested earlier for possessing over 17,000 Afghan SIMs and other equipment were granted bail by Peshawar High Court on Wednesday.

During the hearing, Advocate Muhammad Tariq Afridi informed a two-member bench comprising Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Malik Manzoor that his clients, Bilal and Abdullah, were arrested on December 17 in a raid on their house in Tajabad without any proper complaint from the competent authority.

“Under the Pakistan Telecommunication Ordinance 1994 Section 31 subsection 5, the competent authority must file a complaint prior to taking any action, but in this case the procedure was not followed,” argued Afridi. He added the accused should therefore be granted bail and the FIR registered against them should be cancelled.

Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Manzoor Khan Khalil told the bench 17,000 illegal SIMs, 2,000 gateways, several mobiles and batteries, computer modems as well as a monitor and laptop were recovered from the accused during the raid. After their arrest, Bilal and Abdullah were handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for further investigation.

Khalil further explained proper procedure was followed before conducting the raid. “A complaint was filed by Javed Akhtar, the assistant director of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) enforcement wing, after which the house was raided,” he said.

The DAG further informed the bench that under FIA inquiry and investigation rule number 3, the authority can initiate an inquiry on its own or upon receiving a verbal or written complaint. “In this particular case, a complaint was filed,” said Khalil.

Upon hearing arguments from both parties, the court granted bail to the accused on Rs400,000 in surety bonds, however, their appeal to cancel the FIR was dismissed.

On December 17, SSP Operations Najeebur Rehman Baghvi announced during a news conference that police had arrested Bilal and Abdullah, who were allegedly dealing in illegal Afghan SIMs. Baghvi claimed they had also recovered 17,895 SIMs from their possession.

“These people have been living in Pakistan for a long time and are involved in the business of illegal Afghan SIMs for the past two years. They had created an international gateway for phone calls, inflicting millions of rupees in losses to the national exchequer,” claimed Bhagvi, adding that their boss was living outside of Pakistan.

The SSP had also said the Afghan SIMs sold by these people were being used in various crimes, including kidnapping for ransom and extortion.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2014.